Moviegoers and Their Pavlovian Response to Penis

Yes, I get it. Penises are not something we see every day. Oh wait, yes we do. All men (and a good deal of women) see penises every dang day, so why all the chuckling? Of course I'm referring to my recent screening of Watchmen, a film in which a big, blue demigod wanders around most of the film with his big, blue member dangling southward. The first time the oversized organ showed up in the film, I noticed a bunch of (not so) muffled chuckles, and I didn't think much of it. It's weird to see full-frontal male nudity in a mainstream film, doubly so when the wiener is all blue and slightly glowing.

But then, later in the film, the dingle shows up again and again. Director Zack Snyder even has a sequence in which THREE of the blue bullets can be seen clearly, as if to say "There! Get a good look, get the giggles out of your system, and let's move on." It didn't work. The folks at my screening were so tickled by the schlongs that they had to chuckle (firmly and audibly), as if to show a bunch of total strangers that they weren't, I dunno, aroused by the sight of three superhuman wangs. And then, just like Pavlov's dogs, they chuckled every damn time the thing popped up again. If the movie had been 14 hours long, they would have insta-chuckled at the willy another 45 times.

Now, I'm certainly no paragon of maturity, but by the 3rd or 4th time I see an onscreen tallywhacker, I've been pretty much inured to it. So why is it that fully aged and allegedly mature grown-ups are so dang uncomfortable with the sight of a penis? I never hear anyone chuckling when a vagina makes its way on to the silver screen. Just the opposite in fact: You could hear a pin drop when Sharon Stone uncrosses her legs, trust me, I was there when Basic Instinct opened, and Ms. Stone's thighs with it.

So which group were you in? The one that thought Dr. Manhattan's man-parts were the pinnacle of all things blue, circumcised, and hilarious -- or did you actually GET that a godlike character would have next to no need whatsoever for human-style clothing, shame, or insecurity -- and then you simply got on with the film?